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I read a blip somewhere this weekend that the GOP has *united* against a 2nd stimulus plan.
That is funny (the hahah kind) because the economy appears to be set to hit its worst... not before mid-2010, just prior to the congressional elections! Meredith Whitney, famed bank analyst and bane of the establishment appeared on CNBC today and
predicted a 13.7% unemployment rate! If that is true then it is fairly safe to say that the majority of Americans will be coming around to my point of view — that Obama stinks — about the time they go to vote next year.
Of course, the reality is that Obama has been squandering trillions on wars, bailouts of the wealthy, and futile attempts to help bankrupt corporations like GM who are doomed anyway. He has done NOTHING to help the neediest Americans and has delegated his administration to Goldman Sachs and the Military. From appeasement of torturers to indefinite detentions to lawless spying on all Americans, Obama is nothing short of a smart, black George W. Bush. The sooner Americans realize the facts of the situation they can make plans to save themselves before the USS Titanic slips under the waves.
Emma Ibbers
#7/14/2009:
Yeah, hilarious and ironic. I've been listening to purported unemployment rates for years now and most of them are way too low, besides being disingenuous at best and mendacious at worst; because you have to remember that they do not count the folks who have been turfed out into the streets from mental hospitals that Reagan's people closed, the Nam and now Iraq (2 wars) and Afghanistan vets who need help before jobs, and the previously employed who have tried for years to climb back up and finally gave up. And, now — today, General Motors just expired for real, so all the smaller business that were GM suppliers are also looking at the Wall. Also uncounted are the millions of men (and women) imprisoned for being black or brown. Don't forget the hordes of illegals who cannot work for one reason or another, one of them being asylum officially denied due to darker skin color or the wrong shape eyes. And the people our culture has always denied visibility — the native Americans.
...only other image that might come close is Guernica, but it's original impact has been weakened by gross overexposure.
Siskiyousis
#7/14/2009:
Yeah, but that 13.7% is the phony government number, which is not computed the same way it used to be. The real number will be over 20%, for sure, not even counting underemployed and imprisoned for crimes (off topic: laws get passed because the lawmakers cannot admit the truth to their constituents and must support laws that they themselves violate routinely... like adultery, officially everyone is against it but privately they do it as much as they can get away with :-)
Emma Ibbers
#7/14/2009:
...and we will face it for a long, long time to come.
I am reading a book currently by Charles L Harness — "The Paradox Men" — ...at one point in the story, one of the characters analyzes the curve of Empire to Crash; as the powerful forces in any empire consolidate most or all of the resources, the means of production, the workers are forced by hunger to sell their bodies for food. Crash is not far away in this highly unstable situation; the concept is one that Arnold Toynbee used to characterize the life of all former and ancient empires.
In his own words:" The last stage but one of every civilization, is characterized by the forced political unification of its constituent parts, into a single greater whole." and "Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder."
Many cultures became broken after they used up their own resources waging war: the soldiers that came home knew only how to fight. The rulers had to feed them or face a coup.
Toynbee's comparative analysis of the birth life and decline of civilizations is unparalleled even today in its all-encompassing scope.
Unemployment is not the only phony government number; anymore, you see an elected official talking, you can just about guarantee some percentage of what they say is untrue. Past history, unfortunately, too many of those people have very short memory and attention span. Read my lips is no longer useful, nor what I say, not what I do...
"There is no news organization that could be more trusted to deliver this exclusive, inside look at the Bush White House than The Washington Times. Thank you for your commitment to our nation and our shared values."
I'll be spending the rest of the day ROFLMAO!!!!!!!
Excerpt: "They're really the link between the language system and the emotional system."
It's more likely (in my mind at least) cussing is the emotional system overriding the language system. There are a lot of four letter words that can be substituted for four letter "cuss" words. The entertainment media now finds it necessary to use crude language to emphasize emotional points it is making. Then there's the adage: "there's a time and place for everything". When among those who are accustomed to speaking in a more colloquial vein perhaps a loosening of the emotional system over the language system is appropriate. But when among those accustomed to use the language system for a more orderly structured conversation for a logical discussion of a subject the emotional system is properly restrained. And then again, as my parents used to say to shut me down when using "cuss" words, if you don't have anything good to say, say nothing.
Excerpt: "It was George Bush, after all, who declared on July 4, 2002, that in "Afghanistan we defeated the Taliban". That was never a true statement."
George would never lie. Mislead, perhaps, but surely not lie. Silly me, I must be brainwashed by the media.
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I finally made the connection: Sarah Palin reminds me of Reese Witherspoon's character in "Election". The movie isn't all that good but it shows high school politics and election of class President as a popularity contest with dirty tricks as a last
How many times did Palin accuse Obama of consorting with terrorists? At least twenty times. Now her own closet is being inspected with a microscope and all she can talk about is the unfairness. The main difference between the movie and real life is that Palin isn't all that bright.
Speaking of movies, "Napoleon Dynamite" was on TV a few nights ago. That is a weird movie but it portrays "the human condition" to us, the viewers, by building a (movie) universe of people who are less intelligent and less informed than how we imagine ourselves. We laugh as the characters bumblingly pursue their tiny dreams, but really, the joke is on us because — thanks to the internet — we should all know by now that there is always going to be someone smarter and better informed who is more successful and richer... and that we can't let that detract from our pursuit of happiness. (If you haven't seen it, watching Napoleon's brother ride the time machine which his uncle bought on the internet is hilarious.)
Leopold
I saw "Napoleon Dynamite" for the first time just a few months ago, but missed the wise observation that you made.
As for Sarah Palin, she almost defies intelligent analysis. I don't think there's much there. She believes in empty platitudes that a significant majority of Americans also believe. And she's pretty. With those attributes she'll always have at least 25% of Americans in her corner no matter, and with proper packaging she's still a threat to win the White House, at least until the wrinkles arrive on her face. As Yakov Smirnoff so wisely observed, what a country.
Helen & Harry Highwater
#7/13/2009:
Witherspoon's character was quite intelligent. More like Hillary Clinton than Palin.
Maybe someday the US will once again design and build them, and make the styling a little more American and a little less eastern European. Which isn't to say they are unattractive, because they are very nice. They just don't look American to me.
SirJ
Over the next several decades of the new American economy, as cars and gasoline become expensive luxury items, Americans will learn all about streetcars... first watching them, then riding them, then yessirree, designing them.
Maybe I'm just in an optimistic mood this morning, but I think America in 50 years or so, long after I'm dead and assuming the society survives, will be a better place.
Helen & Harry Highwater
About the time the U.S.A. stopped making streetcars, Hiroshima was being rebuilt. The
tramway system became an integral part of that city's life, as this beautiful video demonstrates. We have stinky buses which no one uses; they have a tram ballet. How did the US go so wrong?
SirJ
How did the US go so wrong? If the question is confined to public transit, I'd guess that the key ingredient was big money from the auto and oil industries buying politicians for a century, which made America's much-babbled-about "love affair with the automobile" possible.
Helen & Harry Highwater
#7/14/2009:
Sir J wondered, "About the time the U.S.A. stopped making streetcars, Hiroshima was being rebuilt. The tramway system became an integral part of that city's life, as this beautiful video demonstrates. We have stinky buses which no one uses; they have a tram ballet. How did the US go so wrong?"
The answer was in his question. Hiroshima was being rebuilt. WW2 devastated entire European cities and, of course, obliterated Nagasaki and Hiroshima from the face of the planet. Europe and Japan had no choice but to rebuild their centuries old cities anew. Rather than rebuild the past, they designed their futures.
American cities were completely unscathed by war. The infrastructures of these cities simply became older and less economically productive. In truth, they grew old and senile.
Excerpt: So Obama should hang tough. The sad thing is that even if he doesn't give us an inch on the settlement freeze, we'll probably end up taking a mile anyway. If he caves in and agrees to give us that inch, we'll take two miles.
Excerpt: Keynesians like Paul Krugman say that fiscal stimulus will get us out of this economic crash.
Austrian economists say that the Keynesians are wrong, and that they erroneously think that stimulus spending is a "free lunch".
But — whether you agree with Keynesians or not — the fact is that what the government has actually been doing is spending our money on helping out the big boys, and spending next to nothing on even trying to stimulate the economy. The government is giving trillions to the big banks and financial giants, but almost zero to the working people.
Specifically, the stimulus bill was $787 billion, which is less than a tenth of the money thrown at the financial elites.
The lion's share of the $787 billion was for pork, not for anything which could actually stimulate the economy.
Of the $787 billion, only about 10% has been spent so far.
The Government Accountability Office says that the $787 billion stimulus package is not being used for stimulus. Instead, the states are in such dire financial straights that the stimulus money is instead being used to "cushion" state budgets, prevent teacher layoffs, make more Medicaid payments and head off other fiscal problems. So even the money which is actually earmarked to help the states stimulate their economies is not being used for that purpose.
Stimulus? Where's the stimulus?
So when Obama's economic people say we need another stimulus program, they are pretending that the government has tried — in good faith — to stimulate the economy, but that they've underestimated how severe the economic problems are.
In fact, the government has simply undertaken a massive redistribution of wealth from the little guy to the big boys. That is not stimulus. That is robbery.
Don't believe me?
Okay, but leading economist Dean Baker said the true purpose of the bank rescue plan is "a massive redistribution of wealth to the bank shareholders and their top executives".
And Nobel economist Joe Stiglitz says the Geithner plan will rob US taxpayers.
And congressman Grayson puts it succinctly when he demands "Stop stealing our money!"
The fact that lobbyists from the financial industry have paid hundreds of millions to Congress and the Obama administration is clearly just a coincidence. See this, this, this, this and this.
Excerpt: There is a gender gap when it comes to perceptions of Obama's performance. By a 46% to 27% margin, men Strongly Disapprove. Women are more evenly divided — 33% Strongly Approve and 30% Strongly Disapprove.
Excerpt: The Center for Labour Market Studies (CLMS) in Boston says US unemployment is now 18.2pc, counting the old-fashioned way. The reason why this does not "feel" like the 1930s is that we tend to compress the chronology of the Depression. It takes time for people to deplete their savings and sink into destitution. Perhaps our greater cushion of wealth today will prevent another Grapes of Wrath, but 20m US homeowners are already in negative equity (zillow.com data). Evictions are running at a terrifying pace.
Some 342,000 homes were foreclosed in April, pushing a small army of children into a network of charity shelters. This compares to 273,000 homes lost in the entire year of 1932. Sheriffs in Michigan and Illinois are quietly refusing to toss families on to the streets, like the non-compliance of Catholic police in the Slump.
Europe is a year or so behind, but catching up fast. Unemployment has reached 18.7pc in Spain (37pc for youths), and 16.3pc in Latvia. Germany has delayed the cliff-edge effect by paying companies to keep furloughed workers through "Kurzarbeit". Germany's "Wise Men" fear that the jobless rate will jump from 3.7m to 5.1m by next year. The OECD expects unemployment to reach 57m in the rich countries by the end of next year.
This is the deadly lag effect. What is so disturbing is that governments have not even begun the spending squeeze that must come to stop their countries spiraling into a debt compound trap.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy, with a good nose for popular moods, says: "We must overhaul everything. We cannot have a system of rentiers and social dumping under globalization. Either we have justice or we will have violence. It is a chimera to think that this crisis is just a footnote and that we can carry on as before."
The message has not reached Wall Street or the City. If bankers know what is good for them, they will take a teacher's salary for a few years until the storm passes. If they proceed with the bonuses now on the table, even as taxpayers pay for the errors of their caste, they must expect a ferocious backlash.
If it were me running the show, I would pick the worst 50 shitholes in the US — one per state — and declare them Economic Disaster Zones and give 10 years of tax freedom to new factories producing export goods in those locations: no taxes, whatsoever, including property, income, payroll, capital gains, sales, yada yada. And then I would jack up income tax rates on billionaires to 90% and tell them, if you want really low taxes go do something constructive for your country instead of clipping treasury bill coupons. Economic stimulus funds should go to building necessary infrastructure in these economic toxic waste dumps so that the new factories have utilities and transportation infrastructure.
Jeff Koyre
That's a pretty interesting idea, something I wouldn't dismiss out of hand (but Obama's team would). Something must be done and soon, or we're going to reap the harvest we've earned from years of outsourcing America's middle-class jobs, letting criminals run the regulatory agencies, and taxing billionaires at penny ante rates.
Helen & Harry Highwater
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I read your website often and i enjoy ur progressive views but i think u are mistaken a bit about michael jackson. recently my views about him have been changing as well in that i use to see him as a freak or pervert too. but after knowing some people with very high levels of consciousness one thing they have in common is innocence. could it be that michael jackson was just a very innocent person, i think so. could it be that he didn´t really have any type of sexual desires toward children or anyone for that matter.. i think so, because all enlightened masters have no sexual desires.. i´m not stating he was enlightened at all though.. and he did pay a big lawsuit but the kid did have 21 million reasons to lie and could it be possible for a family to lie for 21 million dollars.. i´m not saying for certain he didn´t do it but ..
and when i see the type of people that want to demonize him, like o´reilly and limbaugh, fox news or any mainstream television for that matter, i know much of it must be a lie.. his innocence really frightened people because most people are afraid of and don´t understand there own sexual energy. innocence is a beautiful thing in the spiritual realm... and it made it very difficult for him to adjust to this planet. i think if u take a step back and look at who u are agreeing with u might change ur mind a little.
When substantial shifts occur, it can create the departure of souls who have been carrying significant amounts of higher level energy. When Steve Irwin died, he left the energy of wildlife and wilderness conservancy behind. He had embodied this energy within himself to a massive degree, so by departing, he then allowed this energy to be dissipated to many others on the planet, thus creating a more widely spread purpose and higher energy for the planet as a whole.
Dana Reeve created the same effect when she departed. She embodied angelic energy, and thus, when she departed, we were then given the opportunity as a whole to now embody this energy ourselves.
At other times, souls carrying a significant amount of energy depart because we have evolved beyond the energy they are embodying, and the role of these souls is now over. Anna-Nicole Smith was one of these souls.
When souls depart who carry significant amounts of energy, their sudden absence can be greatly felt, and what they leave behind creates a ripple effect as it migrates and dissipates out for the entire planet to embrace and now embody in a more evenly distributed way.
Michael Jackson, perhaps the most talented performer of all time, embodied a massive amount of higher level energy. He was extremely connected to a higher level and to "the other side." He was unmistakably a bridge; bringing this higher level energy into form and then giving it out to the masses. Remembering oh so well what the "other side" was like, he, like others, found it extremely difficult to exist within and understand the strange and many times darker energies that were on the planet while he was here.
So then, he embodied massive amounts of energy relating to the other side and bringing it here. In this way, he suddenly departed precisely around the time we experienced the solstice of June 21, because it was now time to dissipate that energy to the planet. He has now given us this energy to embody ourselves. He no longer needed to hold so much of it himself, as the shift of the solstice created this new connection for the planet to now experience on its own.
Josh Nix
OK, I'll say something in memory of Michael Jackson. He was probably a pedophile, but that word's shock value is often overhyped and the kids who shared his bed will probably get over the damages done. You're inarguably right about the people who demonize him the loudest, the O'Reillys and Limbaughs and such, and when they hate him fiercely that's an argument against hating him, but nobody sane hates Michael Jackson. Weird life he led, but who am I to judge weird lives?
He was a pop star, and by definition that means his work was a corporate construct designed to sell product. Judge him on that standard and he was one of the greatest of all time. Judge him on his sexual energy, his spiritual realm, or other very personal standards, and we just can't offer an opinion — we never knew the man, only the product and the package it came in. But absolutely, like almost everyone else, we loved the product. There are half a dozen MJ songs on the playlist of my mind right now.
Helen & Harry Highwater
#7/12/2009:
Thanks for the kind reply. I appreciate you taking the time to respond with your mature insight.
Josh Nix
I'm not mature, unless that's a code word for "old". I still love fart jokes. And I also, I'll admit, loved much of Michael Jackson's music, and I was kinda looking forward to his hoped-for comeback. Sigh.
Helen & Harry Highwater
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Do you have any information as to the whereabouts of the silver handled pistols that
belonged to Saddam? The last I read about them was when George Bush was showing them off to a biker group who had gathered at the white house (Rolling Thunder) or some such organization. I was thinking, do these firearms not belong to the Iraqi people and if so, what right did/does George Bush have to them?
Carole D.
Hmmm. Saddam Hussein's silver-handled pistols — that doesn't ring a bell, and a quick Google search comes up empty. I'm guessing it's an exaggeration of this coverage about Hussein's pistol, but there's nothing here about a silver handle.
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This is another brilliant piece of work by Matt Taibbi in which he rebuts typical excuses for Goldman Sachs' behavior. I excerpted a couple of paragraphs which amused me ...
Excerpt: ... The last time I heard something similar was a few years ago, when Debbie Schlussel, a severely dimwitted Detroit-based right-wing pundit, railed against my supposed Arabness after I wrote an article about the Lebanese population in Dearborn, Michigan. I wrote to her to let her know that I'm actually Irish and Filipino, and not at all an Arab, but never got a response. This time the charge is a little different, as several writers complained that my article was "a rehash of every classic anti-Jewish conspiracy theory" and "a pale copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
The evidence for these charges seems to be as follows. One, I used the word "tribe" somewhere near the end of the piece. Two, the term "blood-funnel" was used (one person also hinted that the use of a squid image was somehow anti- Semitic, but I was not entirely clear what was being referred to there). Three, I "singled out" Goldman and failed to level similar charges at "less Jewish firms" (yes, one letter-writer actually used that phrase) like Morgan-Stanley. ...
If anything it seems to me that what defines these Wall Street characters is not religion but the absence of it: even a hardened atheist like myself comes away from the experience of reading about the last two decades of Wall Street history shocked by that community's complete and utter Godlessness and moral insanity. What I'm saying in other words is that if any of these clowns actually had a real religious sensibility, we wouldn't be in this mess — and that's coming from someone who believes all religions to be inherently ridiculous. For Goldman now to hide behind the cloak of Jewish victimhood is both more obnoxious and less convincing than Marion Barry wearing a dashiki after the indictment. ...
Two, even if it is true that "everyone else was doing it": so what? Who cares? To me this response is highly telling. We published a piece accusing Goldman Sachs of systematically ripping off pensioners and other retail investors by sticking them with rafts of toxic mortgages it knew were losers, of looting taxpayer reserves to cover its bad bets made with AIG, of manipulating gas prices to massive detrimental effect, of helping to explode an internet bubble that caused over $5 trillion in wealth to disappear, and numerous other crimes — and the response isn't "You're wrong," or "We didn't do that shit, not us," but "Well, Morgan did the same stuff," and "Why aren't you writing about Morgan?"
Why didn't we write about Morgan? Because we didn't. Because it's your turn, you assholes. Maybe later someone will tell the story of the other banks, but for now, while most ordinary people are only just learning about the workings of the financial innovation era that blew up in their faces last year, the top dog in that universe is going to be first in line to get the special treatment. That might be inconvenient for Goldman, but it doesn't make the things I or anyone else say about them untrue. ...
Excerpt: Taibbi calls the US a "gangster state, running on gangster economics." He says we have an economy where "some of us have to play by the rules, while others get a note from the principal excusing them from homework 'til the end of time." And by "others" and "gangsters," Taibbi means the bankers of Goldman Sachs. ...
And Goldman is not alone in criticizing the article. Heidi Moore, a former reporter at the Wall Street Journal who used to cover Goldman and other investment banks for the paper, wrote in response to another journalist's question about the piece, "For the record, I don't think any article that contains the line 'vampire squid sucking the face of humanity' [Taibbi's opening description of Goldman] is real journalism." ...
Lionel Reebenhoffer
And there's the difference between Matt Taibbi and Time Magazine. Time is offended and thinks it can't be journalism if a reporter is offended at particularly offensive news. Time can't bring themselves to state such simple, obvious truths as the fact that we have an economy where "some of us have to play by the rules, while others get a note from the principal excusing them from homework 'til the end of time" — unless they're quoting the person who told that truth, to criticize him.
Helen & Harry Highwater
P.S. I became a Big Fan of Matt Taibbi after reading his beating of Christopher Hitchens in an essay titled "Shoveling coal for Satan".
"To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental... Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery."
— Christopher Hitchens, on Michael Moore
Well, that's rich, isn't it? Christopher Hitchens crawling out of a bottle long enough to denounce Michael Moore as a coward. I can't imagine anything more uplifting, except maybe a zoo baboon humping the foot of a medical school cadaver.
All journalists are cowards. Hitchens knows it, I know it, everybody in this business knows it. If there were any justice at all, every last goddamn one of us would be lowered, head-first, into a wood-chipper. Over Arizona. Shoot a nice red mist over the whole state, make it arable for a year or two. A year's worth of fava beans and endive for the children of Bangladesh: I dare anyone in our business to say that that wouldn't represent a better use of our rotting bodies than the actual fruits of our labor.
No one among us is going to throw that first stone, though. Not even Chris Hitchens, a man who makes a neat living completing advanced Highlights for Children exercises like the following: "Denounce a like-minded colleague, using the words 'Lugubrious' and 'Semienvious.'" Such is the pretense of modern journalism, that we are to be lectured on courage by a man who has had his intellectual face lifted so many times, he can't close his eyes without opening his mouth. By a man who, if the Soviets had won the Cold War, would be writing breathless features on Eduard Shevardnadze for three bucks a word in Komsomolskaya Vanity Fair ("Georgia on His Mind: Edik Speaks Out." Photos by Annie Liebowitz...). ...
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Something just comes in and brightens your day. I was so mad at a couple of websites I thought to myself I wish I could just never have to see them again. So I yahoo'ed block websites and voila for those that use mozilla firefox I found this:
I blocked my first site and felt bliss. Now her hits will be reduced by one-me. It's a lovely feeling. I wonder if enough sites are blocked and they lose enough hits will they cease to exist? (USA Today anyone? That's my fantasy.)
Anyway google, yahoo, whatever to your hearts content. I know common sense says to just not go there in the first place but I'm a researcher first and therein lies my shame. So to have this temptation taken away is awesome.
Sherri B.
Looks like a worthwhile Mozilla add-on indeed. That's what I love about Mozilla Firefox — you can customize your browsing experience and eliminate most of the ordinary on-line annoyances. Deeeelightful!
No, the Obama administration isn't suppressing science by blocking publication of some study that demolishes what's known about global climate change. The guy who wrote the report is an economist not a scientist, and his un-asked-for report cites all the usual climate science deniers. If you're ignorant enough to believe such claims, the debunking at the other end of this link is probably over your head.
I assume this means you are a supporter of global warming theory. I don't know about you, but I question anything that "everyone knows" — including global warming.
I wonder if you've seen this?? Are the scientists in that video lying?
If the thought of watching seventy six minutes of "obvious propaganda" is too much for you, could you spare a mere five minutes? Just watch from 0:10:00 to 0:15:00, then tell me what's wrong with either the data they offer or the interpretation of same.? Got another seven minutes? How about from 0:20:30 to 0:27:30, wherein Al Gore is thoroughly debunked? Can you debunk the debunking?
Thanks for a refreshing website!
John
I appreciate your kind words, sincerely, but global climate change denial is one of several subjects we're not interested in discussing again and again. I have nothing to add to our standard reply on the topic, and no interest in watching another video versus science.
Helen & Harry Highwater
Wow.? If you are unwilling to explore the possibility that you might be wrong, how can you ever really know if you're right?
Not even five minutes?
John
I spent five minutes writing my previous reply, and even that time was wasted.
In ten years publishing our website, you're perhaps the fiftieth or sixtieth stranger who's ask me to watch a video, or read an article, or answer a long list of questions, all to help me understand that global climate change is a hoax, or a plot, or a mistake. We've said no, but tried to say it politely, the same response we've offered to the last few dozen people who've tried to broach the subject despite our plain announcement on the home page that we're not interested.
If you can't take NO for an answer then you're a telemarketer or a Jehovah's Witness at the front porch, so politeness is futile and I'll say good-bye.
#7/11/2009:
Sight unseen, I'll answer John's question, "Are the scientists in that video lying?" If the scientists in the video are claiming that global climate change isn't real or isn't a problem, yeah, they're lying, or more likely they're not scientists, or if they are they're pretty shoddy ass scientists and they're on the ExxonMobil payroll. There are no other realistic possibilities.
I'm with you, Helen, and I'd like to seriously say THANK YOU for keeping the discourse here higher than the level of wanna-be science-debunkers. There's enough of that crap on Fox and in the Times.
Excerpt: Former Guantánamo detainee Binyam Mohamed has launched an urgent legal attempt to prevent the US courts from destroying crucial evidence that he says proves he was abused while being held at the detention camp, the Guardian has learned. The evidence is said to consist of a photograph of Mohamed, a British resident, taken after he was severely beaten by guards at the US navy base in Cuba.
I wonder if somewhere deep in Cheney's "undisclosed location", negatives of torture sessions aren't filed away for his quiet hours of relaxation?
n the something new category perhaps a new model car titled Obama might sell to the faithful Obama crowd in a sufficient number to make GM a viable company after all.
In the old category: Who cares what happens to unlucky losers? We're a country which champions WINNERS.
Excerpt: "The sad part was that the family had options, they didn't have to live in their car in that deplorable condition," he said. "I wish they would have come to our station, we would have found someplace for them to go."
"The sad part was that the family had options, they didn't have to live in their car in that deplorable condition," he said. "I wish they would have come to our station, we would have found someplace for them to go."
The only option now is fend for yourself as best you can because there is no sympathy at the town hall. The selfish attitude rampant in the ruling class in the country is a disgrace to a so-called democracy. Oh, excuse me. We aren't a democracy. We're a republic.
The excess money supply in the world is gradually and increasingly being "stored" in "stuff". For example, the Chinese government is on a global shopping spree buying *everything*, from coal to oil to gold to shares of resource companies to land. This is what Ty Andros is referring to as the "crack-up boom".
For the West, our asset based societies are crumbling as our massive debts are becoming unserviceable due to globalization and de-industrialization. And with the credit crisis the pace of money printing is increasing. Just this weekend Paul Krugman is calling for another round of economic stimulus!
I advise you to spend most time looking at Andros' charts. His preliminary narrative may be painful to read for someone who is desperately hoping for "healthcare reform" (one man's justice is another mans socialism...)
Another thing the crack-up boom explains is how the stock markets can go up in the midst of such a massive financial crisis... Well, Bush/Obama allocated TWELVE TRILLION simoleons and that goes quite a way to pumping up financial asset prices... essentially it means, regarding dollars, use 'em or lose 'em. Gold, oil, drugs, guns, ammo, whiskey weed and women... stocks... whatever, just don't be the last person standing in the inflationary musical chairs game...
Sven Goldstein
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Sarah Palin's logic: to not quit her job would be the quitter's way out...
"If I have learned one thing: LIFE is about choices!
"And one chooses how to react to circumstances. You can choose to engage in things that tear down, or build up. I choose to work very hard on a path for fruitfulness and productivity. I choose NOT to tear down and waste precious time; but to build UP this state and our country, and her industrious, generous, patriotic, free people!
"Life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and "go with the flow".
"Nah, only dead fish "go with the flow"."
An observer of the Sarah Palin experience is like Alice visiting Through The Looking Glass ... everything you thought you knew about reality is confounded by declarations made with 110% sinceritude.
Sarah Palin is an (amateur) actor playing a politician playing an actor...
It is as if Sarah Palin watched other politicians like G.W. Bush and stole their moves... "Aw shucks, folks!"
Sarah Palin believes that she makes her own reality; if she says it then it is true, and that if Fox takes her seriously as a presidential candidate then she is, by definition, qualified (corollary: what is Truth anyway?
Excerpt: 'And only one for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!'
'I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't — till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. 'They've a temper, some of them — particularly verbs: they're the proudest — adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs — however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'
'Would you tell me please,' said Alice, 'what that means?'
'Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. 'I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'
'That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
'When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra.'
'Oh!' said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.
'Ah, you should see 'em come round me of a Saturday night,' Humpty Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side, 'for to get their wages, you know.'
Excerpt: And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits — a booming trillion- dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an "environmental plan," called cap-and-trade. The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that's been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won't even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.
Excerpt: I'm aware that some people feel that it's a journalist's responsibility to "give both sides of the story" and be "even-handed" and "objective." A person who believes that will naturally find serious flaws with any article like the one I wrote about Goldman. I personally don't subscribe to that point of view. My feeling is that companies like Goldman Sachs have a virtual monopoly on mainstream-news public relations; for every one reporter like me, or like far more knowledgeable critics like Tyler Durden, there are a thousand hacks out there willing to pimp Goldman's viewpoint on things in the front pages and ledes of the major news organizations. And there are probably another thousand poor working stiffs who are nudged into pushing the Goldman party line by their editors and superiors (how many political reporters with no experience reporting on financial issues have swallowed whole the news cliche about Goldman being the "smart guys" on Wall Street? A lot, for sure).
Goldman has its alumni pushing its views from the pulpit of the US Treasury, the NYSE, the World Bank, and numerous other important posts; it also has former players fronting major TV shows. They have the ear of the president if they want it. Given all of this, I personally think it's absurd to talk about the need for "balance" in every single magazine and news article. I understand that some people feel differently, but that's my take on things.
As previously noted by me, the boom-bust cycle in the US is the main reason that having private health insurance companies safeguard our health care premiums (money) is ludicrous. For every great investor like Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway is essentially an insurance company, there are ten stinky investors at major corporations. The list of public corporations holding the public's money and investing it is massive. Not just health insurance companies! Not just insurance companies either. Think about pension plans...
Another point is that economic crimes rarely result in jail time when the criminals work at corporations. Yet economic crimes are just as deadly as muggings and home invasion robberies. Wall Street is responsible for more deaths of American citizens than occurred in all of our wars combined: poverty = early death in our country. (I think the Federal Reserve has killed millions too by its inflationary policies which steal from the poor to give to the rich.
The new carbon credit trading scheme is another rip-off and sneaky murderer of Americans. I'm not opposed to cleaning up the environment, but there are other ways to do this than turning over "enforcement" to Wall Street and making it an exercise in derivatives trading. Norman Spinrad's sci-fi novel "Greenhouse Summer" portrays the future reality where "Big Climate" siphons off the majority of humanity's capital for harebrained schemes that have no chance of working. The bigger and stupider the idea, the more chance it has of getting government funding ...
#Iran's election — distilled by Donklephant: Unfortunately, I didn't see much effort put into the distilling done on Iran's election at this site. Surely, by now people know that the New York Times (NYT} offers only "mainstream" twisted into propaganda news.
Anyway, what the NYT said was this: "Iran's most powerful oversight council announced on Monday that the number of votes recorded in 50 cities [sites] exceeded the number of eligible voters there by three million, further tarnishing a presidential election that has set off the most sustained challenge to
In fact, the 3 million votes were NOT problematic votes. Plus, there are actually several reasons why Iran's election is NOT tarnished by the over 100% voting in some areas.
(1) That's because Iranians are allowed to vote anywhere in the country they like using their official identity certificate/booklet, the Shenasnameh, which the US State Dept. accepts in lieu of a birth certificate since it contains both birth and parent related info. plus a picture. As far as I understand it, there is no need for voter registration with this system. Then, with voting on a Friday, the weekend for them, some people were out on trips or already on vacation. Thus, the extra high turnout in those areas. Also, due to the fingerprint taken using indelible ink during voting, see below, it would be hard for anyone to try to vote more that one time by running around from location to location.
(2) Also, the Shenasnameh itself gets stamped uniquely with special ink for each election as does the ballot. On the stub part is a serial number, according to Press TV, and info. about the voter from the Shenasnameh filled in by those working at the polling station — according to this article explaining Iran's election procedures in detail. The voter's age (now at least 18) and the stamps already on the Shenasnameh are checked. The voter's fingerprint is put on the stub. The linked article says that the ballot part has no serial numbers on it which means the ballot can't be linked back to the particular voter — thus, a secret ballot. Finally, when the counting starts there is a check to see that the number of stubs and ballots are the same. Any extra ballots means that that number are randomly taken out and cancelled. If there are fewer ballots, the discrepancy is reported.
(3) As for the stubs with their serial numbers on them, they (and any unseparated, unused ones) are put in with the ballots once the counting is done. The serial numbers will indicate where the ballots come from since those sending out the ballots keep track of which serial numbers are sent to which locations.
My conclusion is that if we go back to paper ballots in the US, a very good idea, maybe some of Iran's procedures should be noted.
Marie K.
P.S. Regarding Ayatollah Khamenei's title, one of the articles I read by Iranians indicated that "leader" was wrong and "guide" correct. In checking out the Persian, the word used is definitely "guide" (rahbar) and in Iran's Constitution, "The Guide." Out of respect "Rahbare Moazzam" is used. Based on Turkish this would be "Great Guide" (both words are used in Turkish). What gives Iran's Guide influence is the fact that he appoints the heads of the armed forces, the national radio and TV network, and the defense and foreign affairs security councils, He also appoints the chief judge and half of the Guardian Council jurists.
#
I need to get this off my chest. I've been unemployed for 14 months now. This happenstance was caused by an employer demanding that I overload a tow truck. My being the owner of a CDL, did not allow for this condition, as the consequence of a mishap was that that would have caused great damage and possible death. i.e., driving along on a Toll road at the maximum 50 MPH while loaded, with all other traffic doing 70MPH, trying to do 100MPH. Now something happens, the towed vehicle breaks loose, and going the 50MPH off the tow truck, comes to an abrupt halt in front of traffic doing 70MPH in Rush hour, and Havoc for at least the 1st 25 vehicles on a 3 lane roadway. The owners answer to this was that's what insurance is for. Now in Illinois, that's why we have a former Governor doing time in an Indiana Prison, what do you think they'd do to me.
At any rate, after the owner tried to deny me unemployment insurance for insubordination, and with his lack of producing fact in my claim, without perjuring himself, I was awarded unemployment. Now to the matter at hand. Unemployment only paid just less than half what I had earned, and half of that plus went to paying for my vehicle, which I did for 14 months without exception, not including insurance, gas, maintenance, I finally get a job. Now Chase, being the owner of the note, couldn't bother to wait 5 lousy days for a payment, so as I could afford to have funds available to work. They demanded payment or give the vehicle back. So I made the payment, but now I don't have a job again, for who knows how long. And as unemployment has run out, no way of trying to continue to become economically viable. The "people" I spoke with, wouldn't even connect me with their supervisors, to explain this situation. I tried in vain to contact somebody, anybody.
Ideal Auto Body, Arlington Heights Illinois
Chase auto loans USA
Thanks guys, may the Bird of Paradise fly up your asses and explode, causing you 100 x's the mental anguish I endured these past 14 months, and everyone in your employ suffer because of your injustices.
Whew! Just had to get that off my chest.
Kerry Lee Joseph Henry Rado
Man o man, this all sounds pretty dang seriously sucky. If I had some funds
I'd send what I could but we're having our own hardships (like a lot of
folks). I will remember you in our prayers and think of you as I hoist what
I wish was a beer but will probably just be water. Sincere hugs.
I'm more than a little car-phobic, from having a few friends killed and crippled in car wrecks, and the tinyness of the Nano scares me... but it does sound affordable and fuel efficient ...
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Of course not. Nobody will know the answers until there's an open and honest investigation.
But anyone courageous enough to think can see that the pertinent questions for any serious "investigation" were never asked, let alone answered, by the official investigators.
Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine. The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution expressed a desire in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several states as Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures to be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the said Constitution. viz: Articles in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress and Ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution. The First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
The Second Amendment
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
The Third Amendment
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
The Fourth Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The Fifth Amendment
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
The Sixth Amendment
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
The Seventh Amendment
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
The Eighth Amendment
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
The Ninth Amendment
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The Tenth Amendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
